


I'm sorry

by Mixu



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Implied Slash, M/M, let me know if I should put a violence warning in there, spoilers for episode 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 14:39:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5970685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mixu/pseuds/Mixu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble. Rhys looks back on things as he decides to keep or break the mechanical iris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm sorry

How many times had he escaped death by now? Far more than he cared to count. Standing there, his shoulder, his eye, the whole side of his head aching in a way that made him want to pass out any moment. The mechanical iris just on his palm, so small and vulnerable, literally holding fate in his hand, torn between keeping it for god knows why and ending this for good. 

Jack, once his idol, the last piece of him contained right there. Just minutes ago dangerous and almost killing him, strangling him with Rhys' own hand. It took him a shred of broken glass to make the AI change his tune.

It had been admittedly shocking to see his once former idol on his knees, begging for him to not go through with it as the mechanical iris was dangling out from his eye. But it hadn't deterred Rhys, not anymore. It wasn't nearly enough, it didn't undo all the lives lost, the trust betrayed. It didn't undo the fact that Jack had been out to murder him from day 1 since being shoved into his temple. 

„I'm sorry, Jack.”

It had been so painful ripping himself apart like that, arm, port and then his own eye. It had been a painful road alltogether. He barely could believe he and Jack had formed some sort of friendship along the way, AI or not. Clearly playing on the fondness Rhys had towards Handsome Jack as his idol, as someone he only dreamed of meeting one day, the AI had crawled under his skin more than in a literal sense. Into territories he didn't dare and never will admit to himself nor anyone else.

Taking the deal back on Helios, those scarce blissful moments, Rhys felt like he had been living the dream. Those moments when Jack wasn't displaying his casual satisfaction about his kill counts and methods. It was dubiously yet still redeemable up until that point, where it seemed as a natural conclusion to shove an endoskeleton into Rhys, his ending life seemingly a matter of nothing. The disillusion reached a point of no return after that.

And yet, Rhys had been distracted once more. After the crash, listening to Jack's last moments of retrospection, seeing a trace of human and history that had possibly led up to what the man was, not that he gave himself much room to sympathize. Not anymore. And for what, only to get Jack plunged back into his head moments later as he had been ready to leave the AI for dead.

Now holding this, the container of the program, the man, in his hand, he knew he should decide before the dizziness kicks his balance off. Despite all homicidal and megalomaniac tendencies, the clear manipulation and betrayal, Rhys still felt sorry for the man. Not that he respected him anymore, liked him even, he pitied him. Jack's last attempt at begging, being it genuine or not, it got to a part in Rhys. 

It was clear that letting Jack out in anything more complex than a toaster was remarkably dangerous and would potentially start this whole cycle again. Yet the man couldn't bring himself to crush the tiny container just yet. Rhys placed the iris in his pocket just as his vision was getting spotty. 

Falling face first on the ground, he convinced himself as a last coherent thought, that he's just postponing the logically inevitable decision. He won't get peace before Jack is gone for good. Just not yet...

**Author's Note:**

> The feels... I had to write something, I'm still having so much feelings from tftbl.


End file.
